Category Archives: Research

World Suicide Prevention Day 2015: New research with people with Bipolar Disorder

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Rebecca Owen, PhD Student

Rebecca Owen, PhD Student

Rebecca Owen, a PhD Student co-supervised by Dr Rob Dempsey (Lecturer in Psychology, Staffordshire University), reports on her current research investigating the role of psychosocial factors:

With this week being National Suicide Prevention Week, I thought it might be interesting for psychology students and the general public to see how a topic as sensitive as suicide is tackled from a psychological research perspective. Our work is investigating experience of suicidal thoughts, feelings and behaviours or attempts (also known as, “suicidality”), in people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Despite numerous suicide prevention efforts from various sources including, the NHS and charities such as Samaritans, suicide remains the leading cause of death amongst men aged 15 to 44 in the UK. Every four minutes someone makes a suicide attempt and every hour and a half someone dies – so it really is an epidemic.

2015_wspd_banner_englishSuicide tends to be investigated in terms of risk factors. Research studies will try to identify factors which put an individual at a greater risk of either becoming suicidal or attempting to end their life. Common risk factors include gender (being male is typically associated with greater risk), age, employment status, marital status, a previous suicide attempt and a mental health diagnosis. Although these factors can help to predict who might become suicidal, they don’t really tell us anything about why someone became suicidal. For example, simply being male and unemployed doesn’t give us any explanation of the underlying psychological processes and pathways which led to the development of suicidal feelings.

This is where our work comes in – we’re interested in finding out more about these underlying psychological processes. For example, feeling hopeless, feeling defeated and trapped within a situation, feeling like you can’t cope. By understanding more about these processes, we hope that we’ll be able to better inform psychological interventions which specifically aim to change these processes in order to reduce suicide risk in bipolar disorder.

This type of research is a relatively new area in the field of bipolar disorder, so we started off by conducting an exploratory qualitative study with 20 participants (click here to view the paper’s abstract). We found that factors which protected against suicidal behaviour included, (1) thinking about the impact that suicide would have upon family members and friends, and (2) having a strong social support system. We found that triggers for suicidal thoughts included, (1) experiencing mental health stigma, and (2) feeling like a burden to other people.

Participants sought: Do you have a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder?

These qualitative findings have informed a larger, quantitative, questionnaire based study which we are currently recruiting volunteers for. Recruitment for the questionnaire study will close by February 2016. If anyone would like any more information about our work or would like to take part, please get in touch with me directly by email at Rebecca.owen-6@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk or by phone on 0161 275 2593.

World Suicide Prevention Day 2015

Fully Funded PhDs in Psychology at Staffordshire University!

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The Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University are pleased to be offering four fully funded PhD Studentships. These studentships will involve conducting a major research project (see below for details) as well as some light teaching duties.

Staffordshire University's £30 million Science Centre, home of the Psychology Department

Staffordshire University’s £30 million Science Centre, home of the Psychology Department

The studentships include a fee waiver, a tax-free stipend of £14,057, and six hours per week of teaching duties.

Interested parties are recommended to contact the respective Principal Supervisors for further details about their studentship. Further details about the application process for these PhD studentships is available here.

Please note that the closing date for applications is Monday 14th September 2015.

1. The design, development and evaluation of a diabetes prevention programme

Principal Supervisor: Dr Rachel Povey (email R.Povey@staffs.ac.uk).

Diabetes is a significant health issue within the UK, with over 3 million diagnosed and an estimated 590,000 as yet undiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes (Diabetes UK, 2015), costing the NHS approximately £10 billion per year. As Type 2 diabetes can be preventable, the NHS, Public Health England and Diabetes UK have recently launched a national Diabetes Prevention Programme, which will be piloted in seven sites around the UK.   The proposed PhD studentship has been developed through ongoing collaboration between PSE researchers and Public Health England (PHE). It will be supervised by Dr Rachel Povey, Dr Chris Gidlow and Dr Naomi Ellis and will involve the development, support and evaluation of aspects of the Diabetes Prevention Programme. Although this will be driven, in part, by the needs of PHE, the first months will be spent defining the PhD based on the available opportunities, in addition to the student’s own ideas, experience and expertise

Supervisory Team: Dr Rachel Povey, Dr Chris Gidlow & Dr Naomi Ellis.

2. Applying the social norms approach to improve dietary behaviours amongst high school students

Principal Supervisor: Dr Robert Dempsey (email Robert.Dempsey@staffs.ac.uk)

Rates of obesity and the consumption of unhealthy, “junk”, foods are rising amongst young adolescents. This PhD project will involve the development and evaluation of a social norms-informed intervention to promote healthy eating amongst high school children. The intervention will be based on the Social Norms Approach, an intervention strategy used to elicit positive behaviour and attitudinal change by challenging commonly held misperceptions of peer behaviours and attitudes. Social norms interventions have been primarily conducted in the USA and have focused on reducing substance use by university students, with few studies investigating the presence of normative misperceptions of healthy eating amongst young adolescents and whether these misperceptions can be challenged via normative feedback.

Aims:

  • Conduct a systematic literature review of existing studies.
  • Develop a social norms-informed intervention which can be used in-class (using a cluster randomised controlled design) with input from children from the intervention site.
  • Investigate the extent of normative misperceptions of peer healthy eating behaviours and attitudes amongst high school students.
  • Conduct a small-scale study (a cluster randomised controlled trial) to investigate whether the social norms intervention has a significant impact on normative misperceptions and healthy eating behaviours and attitudes.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness and acceptability of the intervention (using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies).

The successful candidate will be expected to make an original contribution to the design of the project and be capable of working independently. This is an exciting project which is ideally suited for a bright, motivated and enthusiastic graduate with interests in health psychology, behaviour change and in evaluating the Social Norms Approach.

Supervisory Team: Dr Robert Dempsey, Dr Rachel Povey, & Prof Tony Stewart.

3. The role of attention and negative emotion in the production of false memories

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Louise Humphreys (email L.Humphreys@staffs.ac.uk)

Research suggests that memory is enhanced for emotionally negative events (Humphreys, Underwood, & Chapman, 2010), yet negative emotion can lead to heightened susceptibility to false memory (Porter et al., 2010). Whilst research has examined the role of attention in emotional memory (typically results show that emotional stimuli capture more attention than neutral stimuli and are preferentially attended to despite other task demands), few studies have addressed what role attention plays in emotional false memories. Van Damme and Smets (2013) is one of only a few studies that have examined this. They found that negative valence inhibited central false information but increased peripheral false information, suggesting that attention is drawn to emotionally arousing features (with fewer resources available for processing peripheral details). Based on these findings a measure of attention should show differences in attention allocation between central and peripheral details. However, to our knowledge no research has directly measured the role of attention in false memory production.

The role of attention in emotional false memory will be examined by 1) manipulating attention at study, and 2) measuring attention using eye-tracking methodology. This research has important implications for the courts, where false memories are a perennial problem. Presenters of fact (e.g., barristers, solicitors) as well as triers of fact (e.g., judges, jurors) need to become aware of factors that can influence people’s susceptibility to false memories. This research aims to examine attention to emotionally negative events, and how this impacts on people’s susceptibility to false memories.

Supervisory Team: Dr Louise Humphreys & Dr Sarah Krähenbühl

4. Portraits of Pain: The use of pain drawings to meaningfully communicate pain experiences

Principal Supervisor: Professor Karen Rodham (email: Karen.Rodham@staffs.ac.uk)

There is evidence that pain drawings may be a method by which people in pain can meaningfully communicate, understand and potentially alter their pain experiences. This study follows a protocol established and tested by Loduca and colleagues (2014) in Brazil, which incorporates pain portraits into the rehabilitation process. Understanding more about a person’s experience of pain will facilitate the development of more individualised and patient-centred treatment plans.

We are currently completing a feasibility study exploring how best to incorporate the Pain Portrait process into a UK NHS-based pain management programme. The PhD builds on this feasibility study.

Aim: To explore whether replicating and implementing the pain portrait process in clinic in the UK can:

  • help patients communicate and cope better with their pain;
  • help staff understand more about their patients’ pain experience
  • improve patient outcomes
  • provide insight into cultural (UK-Brazil) differences in pain experiences

Supervisory Team: Prof Karen Rodham, Dr Amy Burton and Prof Tony Stewart.

Further details about our courses in Psychology can be found here. Please click on the following links for further details of Staffordshire University’s research centres in Psychology, including our Centre for Health Psychology and Centre for Psychological Research.

New research explores how officers conduct investigative interviews with children

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Dr Sarah Krähenbühl, Lecturer in Psychology and Forensic Psychology researcher at Staffordshire University, discusses her new research exploring the use of “ground rules” by police officers and social workers when interviewing children:

This study examined over 50 transcripts of investigative interviews conducted with children who were either witnesses to, or victims of, different forms of abuse. The particular focus was when, how and if ground rules were used by the interviewing officers (generally a Police Officer but a Social Worker may take this role) and then to establish the likely impact of this on the child’s understanding and the remainder of the interview.

Ground rules refer to explanations such as shutterstock_131453660 Resized‘say if you don’t know’, ‘tell me if I get something wrong’ and an agreement to tell the truth. The interviewing protocol (known as ‘Achieving Best Evidence’ 2011) states that ground rules should be included in all interviews with children. The study took a mixed methodological approach with numerical assessment of what ground rules were included, when this happened, were there any subsequent repetitions of the rules, and a qualitative approach as to the wording used and implications of this.

The results showed that there was a lack of consistency in ground rule implementation despite clear interviewing protocol guidance. Of greater concern was that when the ground rules were implemented the child’s understanding was not established and the relevance of the ground rules to the remainder of the interview was rarely established. So, this study has relevance not only to interviewing officers and legal professionals but also has implications in relation to assessments of child credibility when giving evidence.

Dr Krähenbühl’s study has recently been accepted for publication by Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and can be accessed via the journal’s website:

Dr Krähenbühl teaches on Staffordshire University’s Forensic Psychology degree – for more information about our degrees please visit the Forensic Psychology course page and the Psychology courses webpages.

Does television affect young children’s creativity?

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New research at Staffordshire University aims to find out! Dr Sarah Rose, Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, is welcoming 60 children and their parents to the Psychology ‘Children’s lab’ on the third floor of the Science Centre during June and July. These children and their parents are contributing to new research on the immediate impact of watching television on children’s creativity.

When they arrive at the lab children are given an ‘unusual box’ to play with. The box has ledges of wood attached to it, loops and holes, and inside is a stairway. In order to test their creativity, the children are given unusual objects to use within the box. The different movements that the children make with the objects in the box, such as moving them up and down the stairs or balancing them on the shelves, are recorded and scored for creativity. Following this, the children either watch an old ‘slow-paced’ episode of Postman Pat from the 1990s, a recent more ‘fast-paced’ episode or are given books and jigsaws to read and play with.

The unusual box (SR)

The “Unusual Box”

To determine the effect of watching the TV episode, all the children are then set a number of action and movement tasks to complete, including exploring how many different ways they can get from one side of a room to another and get a paper cup into a bucket. Similar to the activity with the ‘unusual box’, the different movements are recorded and scored for creativity. The assessment of creativity is of course complex. In this study tasks requiring divergent thinking will be used, these will require children to move and behave in different ways. This is a particularly appropriate way to measure creativity in 3-year-old children who may or may not feel like talking to us when they visit the lab!

The Psychology Children’s lab now has a web presence (https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/childrenslab/) and it is hoped that this project will be the first of many to take place in the lab. Sian Foulkes, a current level 6 student, is working as a research assistant to help Sarah to collect the data from the children and their parents. Student research assistants will also be involved in scoring the various tasks for creativity once they have received training. Sarah says ‘that it is exciting to be welcoming local children and their parents to the children’s lab to take part in ground breaking research and being able to provide hands on research experience for students is very important too’.

For more details about the Children Lab click here. Interested in Child Development? The Psychology department at Staffordshire University also runs a successful BPS-accredited BSc (Hons) Psychology & Child Development degree.

 

Blog: Mental Health Awareness Week – New Research into Suicidality & Bipolar Disorder

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Dr Rob Dempsey blogs on Mental Health Awareness Week and some ongoing research into the role of psychosocial factors in the experience of suicidality in people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

This week marks the Mental Health Foundation’s “Mental Health Awareness Week” – an MHAW_RGBannual event which aims to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing. It is estimated that around 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience some form of mental health issues and there is increasing recognition of the need for increased funding and resources for NHS mental health services.

One of the current research projects I’m involved in is investigating the role of psychosocial factors in the experience of suicidal thoughts, feelings and acts amongst people who have a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. Bipolar Disorder is characterised by the experience of severe and dynamic mood swings, including the experience of prolonged periods of depression and mania, and can be one of the most disabling mental health diagnoses. Yet, many people manage their Bipolar Disorder very successfully and some report positive experiences associated with their Bipolar Disorder. Of particular concern, however, is the high rate of completed suicide amongst people who have a Bipolar Disorder diagnosis – around 19% are thought to die by suicide (estimates do variety as Bipolar Disorder is often misdiagnosed) – meaning that people who experience Bipolar Disorder are at a substantially greater risk of completing suicide compared to people from the general population (estimates vary but are around 1.5% for the general population).

Our research, led by our PhD Student Rebecca Owen, was motivated by a general lack of good quality psychological research into the experience of suicidal thoughts, feelings and behaviours in people with lived experience of Bipolar Disorder. We were particularly interested in understanding people’s personal experiences of suicidality and understanding the role of psychological and social factors associated with heightened suicidality. Rebecca’s first paper, recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, was based on a series of qualitative interviews conducted with 20 people who have a Bipolar Disorder diagnosis and who reported the past experience of suicidal thoughts, feelings and/or behaviours. The interviews focused on our participants’ experiences of factors which worsened their experiences of suicidality and, importantly, were protective against suicidality.

We found a number of key themes in the data – including the “impact of others on suicide” (relating to the potential impact on others after suicide – e.g. family members) and “reflecting on positive social experiences” as being protective factors against suicidality. Factors which triggered or worsened suicidal thoughts included the role of negative social events (e.g. negative social interactions and more major life events like bereavements) as well as not feeling understood by others (including participants’ perceptions of being stigmatised due to their diagnosis), feeling like a burden to others and interactions with other people which reinforced the participants’ own negative self-appraisals and thoughts. These results are novel as they focus on people’s lived experience of suicidality including factors which may protect against or worsen suicidal thoughts and feelings. This study formed the first part of Rebecca’s PhD thesis and helped to inform her current studies which are looking at which of these factors (based on a literature review and this qualitative study) predict suicidal thoughts, feelings and behaviours in people with a Bipolar Disorder over time.

In addition to this study, we are working on papers discussing the impact of social factors on the experience of Bipolar Disorder more generally (and vice versa – how does Bipolar Disorder affect individuals’ social lives), a literature review of studies investigating psychosocial predictors of suicidality in people with Bipolar Disorder, as well as a paper reporting our participants’ subjective experience of participating in research discussing suicide. This latter paper is particularly novel as the majority of our participants reported that discussing their own experiences of suicidality was not distressing and we have identified some good practice guidelines for conducting suicide-focused research interviews.

We hope that this research contributes to the understanding of the experience of suicidality in people with a Bipolar Disorder diagnosis and contributes to the development of evidence-based psychological therapies. We are currently running further studies and we are seeking volunteers who have a Bipolar Disorder diagnosis to participate in an online questionnaire study – for more details about the study please contact Rebecca via rebecca.owen-6@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Dr Rob Dempsey is a Lecturer in Psychology at Staffordshire University and a member of the University’s Centre for Psychological Research and the Centre for Health Psychology. Rob is co-supervising Rebecca Owen’s PhD with Dr Trish Gooding (University of Manchester) and Professor Steven Jones (Spectrum Centre, University of Lancaster). Rebecca’s PhD is funded by a Studentship from the School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester.

 

Second Annual Undergraduate Psychology Conference a success!

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Dr Louise Humphreys opening the Conference

The Psychology department at Staffordshire University held their annual conference for current final year students to present their research findings. The conference, held in the University’s Science Centre in March 2015, featured a series of talks by current students on their research projects and included an audience of psychology students and academic staff.

The conference offered current final year students valuable practice presenting their research, and also allowed first and second year psychology students to hear about some of the research conducted by their fellow students, something which will help with developing their ideas for their own final year projects. It was great to hear our current final year students provide some valuable feedback to other students about how to manage their own projects in the future. Further details of the talks given at the conference are below:

Emily Inwards: Attitudes towards asexuality and bisexuality in young adults

Emily

Emily Inwards

Emily started the conference with a great talk about her research exploring young adults’ attitudes towards two sexualities: asexuality and bisexuality.

Emily’s talk highlighted the subjective nature of these sexualities and presented her work in a very engaging and professional manner!

 

Tom Barker: Where do people look when they are telling lies?

Tom

Tom Barker

Tom gave an overview of his research in progress which is using the Psychology Department’s eye-tracking equipment to get a better understanding of individuals’ eye movements when they are lying.

Dr Louise Humphreys, Tom’s project supervisor, commented “I have been impressed with Tom throughout the whole supervision process. He is very enthusiastic about his project and this came across in his presentation. Tom is a very engaging speaker and I believe he will be successful in achieving his future aspiration of becoming a University Lecturer.”

Kizzy Moss: Experiences and perceptions of having a brother or sister with Down’s Syndrome

Kizzy

Kizzy Moss

Kizzy presented her interview project exploring the experiences of individuals with a sibling with Down ’s syndrome. Past research has focussed on parents’ perceptions whilst the perspectives of siblings have been overlooked. Kizzy used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to identify a number of key themes in relation to her participants’ experiences and included issues about children taking on high levels of responsibility and mothering roles for their siblings and a need for greater acknowledgement of the types of support needed by this group.

Dr Amy Burton, Kizzy’s project supervisor, commented: “Kizzy has been a great student to supervise, she is passionate about this area of research and this enthusiasm showed in the quality of Kizzy’s presentation at the conference”.

Cheryl Hyden: Perceived barriers and facilitators to accessing university counselling by university students

Cheryl

Cheryl Hyden

Cheryl presented some very interesting findings from an interview study conducted with students who had accessed on-campus counselling facilities at the university. One of the novel themes Cheryl found in her interview was the role of “self-barriers” in seeking counselling support. Cheryl’s research has particular implications for counselling research and practice, particularly in understanding the reasons why some students are not accessing counselling support when they are experiencing mental health difficulties.

Cheryl commented that “taking part in the psychology undergraduate conference really helped me focus my project write up and really helped me understand my research. The morning of the conference was very nerve wracking, but I enjoyed every minute of the presentation and my confidence grew as time went on. I seriously would recommend future third year students to take part in the conference, it looks good on your CV and give you vital practice in presentations! Also you can show off your research!.”

Dr Rob Dempsey, Cheryl’s project supervisor, commented: “I was very proud of Cheryl and I thought she did a great job in presenting her research at the conference. Cheryl has been a brilliant project student and has shown a massive amount of enthusiasm in her project work. Cheryl has produced what I feel is a very strong project which has clear applications to counselling practice and improving student well-being”.

Helen Jones: Visual processing in those with a fear of spiders

Helen presented her quantitative project on the visual processing of those with and without a fear of spiders. Helen based her study on a recent journal article that showed that participants with a phobia of spiders tended to overestimate the size of a spider that they previously observed. It was suggested in this article that the study should be replicated using a non-clinical sample, which is what Helen’s project did. Although Helen had not yet analysed her data it was predicted that the results would replicate previous findings (that spider fear results in an overestimation of spider size) in a non-clinical sample.

Helen

Helen Jones

Dr Louise Humphreys, Helen’s project supervisor, commented “Helen’s project is very interesting and she did a fantastic job of presenting her research. I was particularly impressed of her awareness of some of the methodological difficulties that can occur when conducting research. Helen was very confident throughout her presentation and the talk was very engaging.”

 

Lauren Crilly: Perceptions of anorexia nervosa

Lauren

Lauren Crilly

Lauren presented her in-progress discourse analysis of how individuals with anorexia nervosa, one of a number of clinically recognised eating disorders, talk about their issues with food.

Lauren’s research took a particularly novel approach and analysed blog posts written by people with anorexia as they discussed their own condition and issues with food.

 

Aimee Page: Everyday life for adults with enteral feeding

Amiee

Amiee Page

Amiee presented her qualitative investigation of the experiences of people living with an enteral feeding tube. Amiee’s work involved collecting interview and diary data from her participants and analysing this using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Amiee’s themes included issues relating to the value and danger of online information and support for this group. Her theme entitled “My choice or no choice” highlighted the challenging decisions people with enteral feeding need to make.

Dr Amy Burton, Amiee’s project supervisor, commented: “Amiee did a fantastic job presenting her work on the experiences of people living with an enteral feeding tube. Amiee’s project has resulted in some important learning points for health care practitioners and patients in an area that has attracted little research attention in the past. Amiee’s and the other presentations were fantastic and show how Level 6 Projects are a great opportunity to be original and create new and exciting knowledge in psychology!”

A very enjoyable conference – well done to all our presenters!

Dr Louise Humphreys, Level 6 Tutor and Conference Organiser, commented “I thoroughly enjoyed the student conference. I was very impressed with the students’ presentation skills and it was lovely to see how passionate they all are about their research. It was great to see such a range of topics and I feel that the students who attended will have gained some great ideas for their own third year projects”.

Judy David, Academic Group Leader for Psychology, commented: “The student conference was superb. The speakers were professional and confident and they did a fantastic job in explaining their project work.  Without exception they delivered interesting and inspiring talks, and the passion they feel for their own research was clearly evident.  I feel sure the students in the audience had lots of ideas for their own future projects, and the whole event left me feeling very proud of our great students.”

Well done to all our presenters!

For more details about the Courses in Psychology offered at Staffordshire University please click here.

Rebecca Rushton, MSc in Health Psychology student, reports from the MHPN Conference.

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Becky Rushton

Becky Rushton

Becky Rushton, a current MSc student at Staffordshire University’s Centre for Health Psychology, reports on presenting her Dissertation research at the recent Midlands Health Psychology Network Conference held in February 2015.

Presenting a poster at the Midlands Health Psychology Network Conference provided me with the opportunity to discuss the research I am currently conducting for my MSc dissertation under the supervision of Dr Sarah Dean (Title: “Adding Personality to the Theory of Planned Behaviour to Predict Cervical Screening Intentions”). [A copy of Becky’s poster can be downloaded at the bottom of this post]

In the forty five minute session I was able to disseminate my research and gain valuable feedback and views on the topic area from other individuals attending the conference. I was also able to view other research posters gaining an insight into a range of areas in Health Psychology research such as pain communication and acquired brain injury, as well as differing research methodologies.

From the poster presentation I have been able to develop skills of producing and presenting a research poster, both of which are new experiences to me. Although daunting at first, presenting a poster at the MHPN conference was a great experience which I would not hesitate to repeat.

The conference provided those in attendance with knowledge of recent research, a platform to share and discuss research either by an oral or poster presentation and an opportunity for a question and answer session on applying for a PhD in Health Psychology – all in one day! The conference was an interesting and inspiring experience which I would thoroughly recommend attending!

Interested in health psychology? Further information about Staffordshire University’s MSc in Health Psychology can be found here.

R Rushton MHPN Poster (March 15)

Becky’s Poster from the MHPN Conference

Midlands Health Psychology Conference: Staffordshire Staff & Students well represented!

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Several members of staff plus past and present students from our Health Psychology MSc and Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology attended the Midlands Health Psychology Network (MHPN) Conference at the University of Derby in February 2015.March 15 MHPN ConferenceDr Amy Burton, Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology at Staffordshire University, reports on a successful conference for our Health Psychology students and staff.

Dr Amy Burton

The MHPN hold a one day conference in February every year which is attended by around 100 members from across the Midlands and is a forum for health psychologists to share clinical and research experiences, information, knowledge and training. Existing members include MSc students, doctorate students, chartered health psychologists based at local NHS sites and regional universities, third sector employees, senior and early career academics, health practitioners and pharmacists.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Healthy Mind and Healthy Body – Understanding, Supporting, and Improving” and gave delegates the opportunity to learn about recent developments in E-Health research from key note Dr Neil Coulson and body image scanning research from key note Professor Sarah Grogan.

In addition, several past and present Staffordshire University students delivered poster and oral presentations on their research:

  • Professional Doctorate students Louise Clancy and Lisa Cowap presented findings from a research project led by Dr Amy Burton investigating facilitators and barriers to physical activity in older people with sight loss;
  • Current MSc student Becky Rushton presented a poster on her project supervised by Dr Sarah Dean investigating adding personality to the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explain cervical screening behaviours;
  • And past MSc student Catherine Burgess gave an oral presentation on her project supervised by Dr Sarah Dean exploring quality of life in people with Lupus.

All of the conference sessions were well attended and the day was a fantastic opportunity to showcase the quality of the Health Psychology research currently being conducted at Staffordshire University.

For more information about Health Psychology at Staffordshire please visit the following webpages: